The Fire Within

In my last post I talked about controlling your thinking. Very internally focused. However too often we get focused on others. Not only what they are thinking but what they are feeling. When someone doesn't think like we do, we want to change their thinking. We want to tell people not to feel what their are feeling. Neither actually works. You can't control what people think and what they feel. The only thing we can do is understand them and build a relationship with them. If we have a relationship and care about that relationship we will work to understand what they think and how they feel. We see it too often in our world, nobody cares about what someone else feels, and we are surprised when there are tensions stemming from it. Sides are chosen and the war to change the other persons thoughts and feelings begins...and never ends. Not until one side chooses to understand the other. When the choice of peace and unity becomes stronger than the choice of war and division. 

Listened to a great podcast recently on Simon Sinek's A Bit of Optimism. Sinek interviewed filmmaker Deeyah Kahn. The topic of conversation was Extreme Listening , which sounds like an unusual term, but when you hear Deeyah tell her stories it makes sense. Deeyah is a Muslim and made a film called  White Right: Meeting the Enemy. The documentary is about her spending time with white supremacists. Her work is all centered around people most of us would consider horrible human beings that you would never want to come into contact with. But listening to her tell the stories and how she got to know these people, it really made me think about how much we don't like to listen to others. It is where Sinek came up with such a great concept as extreme listening.  We argue and debate by trying to convince everyone why I am right and my opponent is wrong. It puts all of the focus on me, my opinion, why my way is better. That isn't how you change peoples opinion. Deeyah Kahn was able...

When you ignore the times the Internet seems to be one flame war after another you can find those great moments when you discover something really interesting. Recently I learned a little about Derek Sivers, an entrepreneur who has started a number of businesses over the years helping to reshape the music industry. He now is focused on helping people build companies in a number of foreign countries. What really got me thinking is a couple of his quotes about customers. Care about your customers more than about yourself, and you'll do well. - Derek Sivers I've seen businesses go to a point of not caring about their customers at all with their actions and they don't even know it. They think they do, but when customers try to tell them that they aren't happy they try to explain away their actions with what they've convinced themselves are legitimate good reasons. All the while their customer base shrinks as they go to the competition or other alternatives. We ne...

This is an over-simplification, but people fall into three general buckets. Whether we are talking about customers, employees, students or any team members you lead. Happy - They are satisfied with your leadership and they like their position or status within the tribe. Things aren't perfect but they feel like they are listened to and you will try to make things better for them. Obviously you want to have everyone in this area, but know that it will never actually happen. Frustrated - There are levels of frustration ranging from the person that is calmly talking about why they aren't happy to the person that is so frustrated that they anyone that will listen. If they feel heard something productive can come from this. Don't Care - They have given up on you. The employee that just shows up and does the bare minimum. The player on the team that never gives their best effort. The customer that really wants to leave but can't find a better alternative but they've g...

The phrase that has infuriated all of us at some point in our lives. There is nothing worse than being invested in something and trying to get others to recognize the value only to get an apathetic response. Everyone has areas of their life that they don't care about that much. For many people it is their jobs, they do what they need to in order to maintain their income. Those that want to see the business succeed it is a hard thing to wrestle with. You can't force someone to care. You can't yell at them till they care. You can't even give big raises and bribe them to care, it doesn't last as long as you think. The key is to surround yourself with as many people that are aligned in what they care about. Great teams have a singular focus and goal that everyone is committed to, that everyone cares about. A great disservice is when the leader doesn't care, or what is probably more appropriate, doesn't appear to care. Appearances are everything. I know that if...

I get asked this question more times in a day than any other. It is the easiest greeting when passing someone in the hall, "Good morning, how are you?" The cliche goes that most people don't actually want you to answer in any way other than fine. They either don't want to hear how someone is doing great or they don't want someone to bring them down who isn't doing so well. The fact of the matter is we all have days that aren't so good. The days where it feels like you have no friends. The days when it feels like nobody at work likes or respects you. The days when it feels like anything you say or do is wrong. The days when you feel isolated and all alone. The enemy tries to get us to think that we are all alone, but we never truly are. There are people beside you in life that will be there for you. There are people in your life that you need to be there for them. Sometimes you give and sometimes you receive. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, "...encourag...

The only thing that is guaranteed in life, is death. At the end of our days on Earth people that we know and love will gather together to say goodbye and share memories of us. Most of us will not be famous and remembered long after we are gone. What will be remembered is the impact and influence we had on the people around us. Thinking of this I was reminded of a story I heard from David Nelson ( @davidnelson86 ) who was a teammate of Tim Tebow and a two time college football national champion. In it he talked about how he came to Christ, his story was when he was in 8th grade students went to a conference but he didn’t have the money. The pastor called him up front, had him explain his situation and and asked the congregation who could give to help him go. At first nobody came up, he felt embarrassed and wanted to run and hide, but then this woman came up, pulled a Ziploc bag from her purse filled with coins and bills and said that she had been saving for years to treat herself to a...

As a manager it is the time of year that I get to go through the process of writing and completing performance reviews on those that I get the privileged to lead. I see far too many managers go through this process with dread and annoyance. If your attitude towards doing performance reviews sounds like that I think it is a reflection of you as a manager and you might want to consider why you are in a management position in the first place. As a manager of people you are entrusted with the development and support of the people that report to you. It is your job to do everything you can to help make them successful and achieve their goals. Their annual performance review is the time to do that. Make sure you set aside time and treat it as the most important task you have done all year, because it probably is. If you are an employee that feels you are subjected to the annual review process, you need to realize that you aren't helping the process. As a manager, it is so much easier a...

Air, food, water and shelter. We all know the essentials we need to survive. If you remember learning about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs you know that after the basic physical and safety needs are met you move into belonging, love and respect needs. We are so blessed to live in a world where the basic needs of life are almost guaranteed that this sense of belonging can be critical because it can be the thing that people most need. For the people in your life that you care about, do they have that sense of belonging? If you aren't sure, here are some ways to help a person feel a greater sense of belonging: Respect - Show the person admiration for what they do. Trust them, believe in them. Support - Nothing makes a person feel better then knowing that someone has their back. That they will stand up for them and help them out when they need it. Forgiveness - People make mistakes and they can cause hurts without realizing it. Forgive and move forward. Kindness - Finding the lit...

I love finding stories about companies and how they do things differently in their culture. This story about the culture of Trader Joe's was a great read. The best was how their manager's will often tell their employees that "it's just groceries." Most of us probably work in a field where it isn't about life and death, yet we act like it is. Cracking the proverbial whip on employees to get that order out the door that the customer absolutely needs. Is it really worth it to make employees feel miserable? The Trader Joe's example shows us that it all comes down to caring about people. That means caring about the whole person, not just caring that the person can get the job done. Is Trader Joe's perfect? I'm sure not. You can probably easily find people that worked for the organization that didn't have such great experiences. There are bad managers everywhere but I'm guessing an organization that has defined cultural values can quickly find...

I've had a number of conversations recently where I have learned some things where I've walked away feeling a little upset. It wasn't the words that were said that were upsetting, it was the fact that I wish they would have just told me sooner. I wish that I had more of that information earlier as I probably would have made some different decisions. I'm not sure if it is the Minnesota nice culture here but we seem to not want to tell people the truth about how we feel. I know there have been plenty of times that I've held things back, kept my feelings to myself, figuring it was better to not say anything. Always remember that nobody can tell you how to feel. They can debate your actions or behaviors, but they can't argue how you are feeling. Speak the truth in love, but we need to speak up more about how we feel and continue to build the bridge between the people we care about and want to have relationships with in our family, friends and work. Here is the...

One of the greatest pieces of wisdom I have ever received on how to properly lead people is, "Speak the truth in love." Now many don't want to talk about love in the same breath as managing or leading people, they don't believe in that touchy feely stuff. Others probably won't want to hear that I found it in the Bible in Ephesians 4:15. Just give me a moment though and you will see, probably from your own experiences, why it is so simple and so powerful. Put yourself on the receiving end of some criticism, you have probably had these types of interactions with people before: Someone that is being honest with you but it is brutal. You walk away realizing it is true but feeling worse about yourself in the process. There are feelings of anger and resentment to the person in all likelihood. Someone that says all kinds of nice things to you but you find out later that it wasn't the truth in how they really felt. You felt good at the time but you end up feel...

Recently I have had interesting conversations with two individuals that are in very different career fields. Both conversations centered on their work place and how they feel employees continue to be treated worse. In the first conversation the person has worked for 19 years with the same organization only to continue to see benefits cut and pay increases decrease every year. The owners seem to care about the customers and demanding that their employees serve their customers, yet view their employees as just a cog in the machine. In the second conversation the employee was let go because the company sold off the part of the organization they were with and it was determined they wouldn’t be kept on. They were only with their organization for 2 years, but a colleague was there for 28 years who was also let go. As I get older my eyes are opened up to the realities of the world we live in. We all know that in business there are times that we have to let people go. Companies grow, shrink ...